The Blues front office isn’t joking around this summer.

New GM Doug Armstrong made an aggressive first move, engineering the deal for Jaroslav Halak. The Blues pried ’04 pick Nikita Nikitin out of Russia, offsetting the lost of defenseman Jonas Junland to Sweden.

Then the Blues remained on the attack at the NHL Draft, trading top defensive prospect David Rundblad to Ottawa to a second first-round pick. That allowed the Note to come out of Day One with center Jaden Schwartz and winger Vladimir Tarasenko, addressing the organization’s glaring need for long-term offensive help.

Tarasenko was one of the few forwards in this draft capable of making an instant pro impact. He fell in the first round because he has two years left on his KHL contract.

Getting players out of Russia is never easy. And keeping players from returning to Russia is difficult, too, as the Predators (Alexander Radulov) and Blue Jackets (Nikita Filatov) discovered.

So this is a high-risk, high-reward move. While Schwartz will follow the more traditional developmental path, spending time at Colorado College on that school’s dime, Tarasenko could offer more immediate help IF he comes to North America.

Rundblad will play in Sweden this season, so sacrificing him in this deal makes sense. The Blues have Alex Pietrangelo and Ian Cole on the front burner and some decent long-range prospects on the organizational chart.

(However, the argument that the Blues couldn’t find long-range ice time for Johnson, Pietrangelo and Rundblad is silly. Defensemen who can make good outlet passes and rush the puck are golden in today’s NHL – and the Note put an under-skilled unit on the ice last season.)

Here are some other thoughts on the Blues and the NHL:

 

• The highly-skilled Schwartz is following a developmental path reminiscent of St. Louisan Paul Stastny, who starred in the USHL before moving up to the University of Denver. Stastny has become a point-per-game center for the Avalanche. If Schwartz becomes that sort of player for the Blues someday, perhaps we’ll finally quit bringing up Stastny.
• Some experts believe Schwartz should have gone later in the first round, but then Stastny went higher than expected in his draft year and it worked out fine for Colorado. Overall, the first round of this draft featured many surprises.
• Blues fans need to rally behind Jaden's sisten Mandi, who needs a bone-marrow transplant ASAP to win her battle with Leukemia. See the related video for more on that.
• The Senators were thrilled to get Rundblad, who could be in the NHL in 2011-12. Ottawa had been looking to draft a forward in that slot in this draft.
• Although Day One of the draft generated a lot more talk than action on the trade front, Florida GM Dale Tallon swung a five-player deal with Vancouver. Defenseman Keith Ballard moved to the Canucks and forward Steve Bernier went to the Panthers.
• Leafs GM Brian Burke had five offers for defenseman Tomas Kaberle, but nothing struck his fancy Friday. Keep an eye on that situation.
• To sign free-agent defenseman Dan Hamhuis, the Flyers would have had to let Braydon Coburn go. So after acquiring his rights from Predators, the team moved those to the Penguins -- who could lose UFA Sergei Gonchar. This is the salary cap at work.
• The Bruins helped their power play by securing Mark Recchi -- and they could really help that unit by winning the Gonchar sweepstakes.